Blog

People who ate butter and drank milk were once uncivilised uncouth outsiders.
The Romans often commented on the inferiority of other cultures, and they took excessive milk drinking as evidence of barbarism. Similarly, butter was a useful ointment for burns; it was not a suitable food. As Pliny the Elder bluntly put it, butter is “the choicest food among barbarian tribes.”
The Greeks called …

You just can't beat a good Celebration - the anticipation, the gift-giving, the music and the mouth-watering traditional foods to mark the special occasion. Thorrablot is no exception.
The Icelandic Midwinter festival extends from 19 - 25 January, the old month of Thorri, and originally honoured Thor. You don't have to wave a hammer about to have a good time and, even better, you don't have to …

To make Pyes
The recipe from Henry's kitchen at Hampton Court is for a meat pye, but I made them with fruit only.
Pyes of mutton or beif must be fyne mynced and ceasoned wyth pepper and salte, and a lyttle saffron to coloure it, suet or marrow a good quantite, a lyttle vyneger, prumes, greate raysins and dates, take the fattest of the broathe of powdred beyfe, and yf you wyll have paest …

Do you make fruit mince pies for Christmas? Once upon a time the English mince pie, known as Christmas Pye, was a large dish filled with various meats.
As Knights returned from the Medieval Crusades with spices, these exotic flavours were gradually added to pies until over the years the meat was fully replaced.
I tried a recipe for a tasty fruit pie called " Ryschewys close and fryez", mince …

There is no middle ground
When you play the Game of Food, you win ...
You don't have to be a fan of the epic novel series A Song of Ice and Fire to relish the recipes in this delightful book. You don't even need to be an ardent medieval cook! You need a healthy appetite for a nourishing meal, some good knives, hungry friends and a wicked sense of adventure.
I'm having a wonderful time …

This is my version of Pullum Frontonianum which translates to Chicken a la Fronto, so named for a Roman author of a lost treatise on agriculture. He won't mind at all that I've put my own take on it.
The ancient Romans cooked very much like Italian cooks do today or to be more precise, like Sicilian cooks. If you can imagine a contemporary Italian meal without tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, corn …